Padres Follow the Script : One Loss Looks Like Another; Cardinals Win, 5-1

ST. LOUIS —  This thing the Padres have for losing, though never pretty, is becoming worse. It is becoming predictable.

The Padres’ 5-1 loss to the St. Louis Cardinals Tuesday may not have been played nicely or even decently, but give it this: It was played right to formula. This loss so followed the script of their eight other losses in their last 10 games, one might surmise that, at last, the young Padres have found consistency.

Here’s what has been happening, and what has happened again:

* The Padres open a game with a couple of good innings, put a few leadoff men on base. They strand them there.

* Good pitching keeps the Padres in the game into the middle innings, when they put enough runners on base and actually have a chance to break it open. But then there is a dramatic failure of execution. The men are stranded.

* The Padre starting pitcher works out of jams in the first few innings but then, knowing that with this offense, he must be perfect, he loses concentration. He walks batters who cannot hit, he gives up hits to those who can barely walk. He suddenly spirals downward until, within minutes of some of his best pitching, he crashes and burns.

* The Padre offense, unable to stand the sight of a crashing and burning pitcher, spends the final few innings sitting on its hands.

* A player, perhaps a particularly hot player, is injured.

* Manager Larry Bowa, not knowing what to say, sums up the night by saying something funny.

So it went again Tuesday as third baseman Chris Brown went down with his first injury and Andy Hawkins was hit with his third consecutive loss. The Padres had only six hits and now have scored one or fewer runs in 10 of 30 games.

Working backward, we’ll start with Bowa, who, frustrated, invoked Nancy Reagan, USA Today and hurricanes in the same breath.

“How can we score one run or less in 10 damn games!” Bowa said. “That’s incredible. You can write all you want to write, that’s the bottom line. These are big-league hitters, they are supposed to hit better than that. I’ve been on teams that hadn’t hit for two weeks, but I’ve never been on a team that has not hit for five weeks.

“In USA Today, they print 100 names, leaders in all hitting categories. I spent all day looking for one guy with an ‘SD’ next to his name. And there ain’t one. Maybe 200 names in that paper, and not one guy with SD. And we haven’t even played the Mets yet!”

Bowa took a deep breath, and continued: “Maybe I need Nancy Reagan to look into the stars for me, figure out who I have to play, how I can win. Anybody know how to get ahold of Nancy Reagan?”

Bowa and the Padres were given another bona fide bad break in Tuesday’s second inning when Brown was removed from the game with a painful cyst on his right hand. The cyst had been examined by a doctor in Pittsburgh over the weekend--unannounced to the media--and treatment by medication and perhaps a later injection was prescribed.

Brown tried to play with it anyway, but after a first-inning strikeout, found it too painful to swing. He was replaced by Randy Ready, and his status was listed as day-to-day.

“It’s really sore. It’s been sore,” Brown said.

By the time Brown left, the Padres were already sore, having stranded their leadoff hitter, Roberto Alomar, on third in the first inning. Second-inning leadoff hitter Carmelo Martinez also reached base and was eliminated with a double play. In all, three innings’ worth of leadoff hitters on base accounted for no runs, giving the the Padres 18 similar innings in this 1-4 road trip thus far.

After the Padres had manufactured a run in the fourth, on Garry Templeton’s single, a stolen base, a Ready fly ball and a RBI grounder by Keith Moreland, it was Hawkins’ turn to struggle.

It started first in the fifth, when Hawkins could not get down a suicide squeeze bunt on an outside pitch, eliminating a charging Benito Santiago, who was easily tagged out at home. He had reached third with one out on--guess--a single, a fly ball and a stolen base.

“Hawkins just missed it,” Bowa said of the bunt.

“The pitch was ankle high,” Hawkins said.

Hawkins allowed a leadoff homer to Tony Pena that tied the game in the fifth, and then with two out in the inning, it happened. Terry Pendleton, 1 for 11 career against Hawkins, walked. Luis Alicea, hitting .235, also walked. Pena reached on an infield single.

Time for pinch-hitter Duane Walker, a 31-year-old career utility player and minor leaguer. He hit a 2-and-2 pitch to right center to score two runs and that was it.

Padre Notes

After pitcher Ed Whitson was removed in the third inning of Monday’s 7-1 loss to the Cardinals, he put on the most powerful batting exhibition of the night, stalking down the runaway toward the clubhouse, smashing one of his bats against the walls and finally breaking it. The clanging noise was so loud, players heard it from the field. “Sometimes I have what I call a miniature snap,” said Whitson, who had allowed six runs in 2 innings when he put on the hitting display. “It’s my way of getting frustrations out.” . . . As pitcher Eric Show prepared to venture into Chicago--where he will start against the Cubs Thursday despite nearly causing a riot there last July 7, when he hit Andre Dawson in the head--former Cub Keith Moreland offered a prediction. “He’s going to be treated with some abuse, but it won’t be violent, it will be verbal,” said Moreland, a Padre who will be returning to Wrigley for the first time since last winter’s trade. “I’m positive they will be booing him bad, but I’m wondering how much of that I’ll take away from him. I know we’ll take some abuse, that’s for sure.” Moreland said that in the fans’ minds, he was never one of the true Cub stars, despite playing six years there. “The real stars are Dawson, Ryne Sandberg, Jody Davis and Rick Sutcliffe,” he said. “Me, I’m not sure what I was.” Moreland emphasized that it is not wrong to start Show there. “C’mon, it’s not going to be that bad,” he said. “It’s vicious everywhere, and it’s part of the game, and you can’t do anything about it.”